We have had good weather to travel, sunny, and warm. We arrived the first night in Salmon Arm, the most surprising thing the first day was the state of the forests. For a long distance on the Coqulhalla highway, it was apparent that the pine beetle had done a lot of damage. So many of the trees are dead or dying, it was the worst that I have ever seen. It makes me feel sad, the only way to get rid of the pine beetle is cold temperatures of -40 for a few weeks. It hasnn’t been that cold in the interior for a number of years.

The second day we drove on to Banff and arrived at suppertime and stayed with relatives in town. I was able to cut out my mom’s blouse. In the morning we had stopped at Three Valley Gap, and looked at the museum. The mountains are spectactular and it was a great drive. It doesn’t matter where we go there is road construction everywhere. The roads will be great eventually and another section will be torn up.

The next day we met up with family for lunch at a pub. The soup was delicious cream of chicken with corn and peas. We travelled on to Hanna for the night. I was able to sew on my mom’s blouse.

Sunday, we drove on to Saskatoon to stay with other relatives, we will be here for a few days and we haven’t made many plans yet. On Monday, we visited with various cousins.

Signs of spring. This magnolia can be seen from the bedroom window and from the breakfast nook downstairs as well. At last, I have given up on wearing my ski coat, the temperature has been in the double digits (C) for the past week. I don’t want to put in my plants too early, I am very cautious before the May 21st weekend but I did buy parsley and rosemary to go with my chives that are growing well.Project Spectrum has suggested a picture facing north. So that is my Northern view.

Blogger is driving me nuts! It has been awhile since I last had trouble uploading pictures but I am having the same trouble as before. My pictures are uploaded sideways for upside down! I have tried uploading at least 5 times in the last few days. A few months ago, I even tried rotating the pictures in my own files and still the uploaded differently!Photos added: I hope you don’t mind the sideways views, just turn on side to take a look!

You will have to take my word for it. But I have some wonderful pictures of a rug hooked mat for my table from my dear friend, it has a ball of yarn and a sock in the design. I also received a fabric postcard in the mail and it has angelina fibers and an organza overlay.

On Sunday, we did a drive through in Stanley Park and we found the blue herons nesting. It was a wonderful thing to see as there were nearly 30 birds in a very small area. I will have to take another drive up to Porteau Cove, the nests looked the same as in Stanley Park, several in one tree and the trees were also close together. The birds in Stanley Park are near the tennis courts.

It was a blustery day last Sunday when we down at the beach. The paddlers were really having to battle some white caps, I don’t know if these people were protesting on Water Day on behalf of keeping the rivers clean for the fish habitat. At one of the other beaches in Vancouver a demonstration was being held. The crocus were up and made me feel cheerful on such a cold spring day.

I went out to Fibres West with a friend on Friday morning and had decided that I’d only purchase sock yarn. Two balls of the blue Summer Sox, Malabrigo green with a greyish cast, Araucania Ranco multy, Mega Boots Stretch by Lana Grossa in two different colour ways. I was very happy with my purchases and we actually had fairly good weather for the hour drive.

Regarding thenests of the last post. I think that they might belong to Blue Herons. On the news the other night they had pictures of similar nests in Stanley Park, the birds have yet to return because of the wet and cold weather. I’ll be driving over to the park to check them out.

Stephanie, I don’t have very good skills with basketry, so I am afraid nest building is out for me, as an art challenge, interesting but will stay in the imaginary realm.Metscan, thanks for visiting and if I find out more about the nests I’ll keep you informed.

When the trees are bare, I am always on the outlook for bird’s nests. There doesn’t seem to be many anymore, usually only one nest in a group of trees. So when I was at Porteau Cove in Howe Sound last weekend, I was surprised to see a group of trees with several nests in each one. I have no idea what kind of bird made the nest but the complexity of a nest always intrigues me.